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Tuesday, June 10, 2014

New
Jersey’s Local Finance Board to Hard Application for Municipal Consolidation
Study Commission for Roxbury and Mount Arlington

ROXBURY
AND MOUNT ARLINGTON – June 10, 2014 – The State Local Finance
Board is set to hear an application tomorrow that calls for the creation of a
municipal consolidation commission for Roxbury and Mount Arlington.

The meeting is
scheduled for 11:30 am at the state Department of Community Affairs, 101 S. Broad St, Trenton. The board meets in Conference Room 129. If
the board approves the application, representatives of both communities will be
appointed to serve on the commission, which will undertake a comprehensive
study into the pros and cons of consolidation.

Citizens representing
Roxbury and Mount Arlington submitted nearly 400 signed petitions last year to
clerks in both municipalities calling for the municipal consolidation study
commission. It would comprise five residents of each town.

The process, which
follows the Local Option Municipal Consolidation
Law, is similar to what is now taking place in Scotch Plains and
Fanwood, which formed their consolidation commission in early 2013 in
partnership with local elected officials.

In Roxbury, the effort
was put together by members of the Roxbury Taxpayer Association. In Mount
Arlington, the effort was driven by former Councilman Gene Paradiso, a current
school board member who joined a group to merge the towns in the 1990s, before
the Local Option Municipal Consolidation Law
was adopted.

“It is our hope that
residents from both communities can attend the hearing in Trenton tomorrow and
voice their strong support for this application,” Rogers said. “This is an
important step in what could ultimately be very important decision for both
communities.”

The effort to gather
petition signatures began October 2012, with residents from both towns meeting
to discuss the petition process.

Roxbury and Mount
Arlington are not the first to pursue this initiative. Princeton Borough and
Princeton Township conducted the study in 2011, and consolidated on January 1,
2013. The merged town has more than $3 million in tax savings and has received
positive feedback from residents.